Proper Use of Nature Requires Technological Innovation

People often bring some misconceptions to the table when they start working with plants. The industrial and commercial use of plant extracts is a whole world apart from what one sees in a standard garden. And it’s often unclear where one should put the bulk of a company’s investments.

There’s no one size fits all answer to the question. But various plants tend to usually put an emphasis on specific types of equipment. For example, one can look at a situation where someone is starting out with hemp. Hemp can be used in a wide variety of different ways. Each tends to correspond to specific strains. Industrial hemp is quite different from medicinal hemp. And hemp intended for psychoactive effects will differ from strains which minimize those effects in order to promote other medicinal properties.

This also raises and important point when looking at various strains of hemp. One industrial use of hemp comes from the fiber. But use of compounds within hemp is becoming more popular by the day. People are constantly trying to create new strains of hemp with higher concentrations of bioactive agents. It’s made more difficult by the sheer number of compounds within hemp. It’s somewhat analogous to a farmer attempting to increase overall yield. It’s easy to understand. As a result, it tends to get the most attention.

But many people have found more success through investment in hemp processing systems. For example, by making proper use of a large scale cannabinoid chiller system. The main point in this method is that you don’t necessarily need a higher concentration of compounds within the biological material. People often assume a set ratio for their extractions. They’ll assume that the only way to increase total output is through an equal increase in cannabinoid concentration.

But improvements in extraction methods take this in a whole other direction. The one to one model is necessary when looking at growing methods that don’t lend themselves to processing. Someone growing apples has a yield based on sheer quantity of apples. And this is usually how people look at cannabinoid concentrations. They’re still approaching it as if they need to increase that initial yield. Adding in more cannabinoids per plant is similar to trying to get just one more apple onto the field. But it’s a very common procedure due to financial incentive involved with switching to hemp from other plants.

But analogies are only useful up to a certain point. And treating hemp like traditional crops will simply put one at a competitive disadvantage. The fact is that biological extracts don’t follow this traditional growing model. The end amount of usable cannabinoids is instead set by a ratio of intake and processing efficiency. Increased efficiency can often more than compensate for lower overall input.

This isn’t to say that the strains don’t matter. But individual crops come and go. Equipment used for extraction and processing should last for a considerable amount of time. This makes it a priority when investing within a company’s infrastructure.